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Spain puts pressure on the European Union to implement the controversial 'health passport' for those vaccinated against the coronavirus

2021-03-02T22:07:21.156Z


Desperate to recover tourism, which represents 12.5 percent of the Spanish Gross Domestic Product, the Pedro Sánchez government wants the EU to implement the use of a health certificate.


Marina Artusa

03/02/2021 18:45

  • Clarín.com

  • World

Updated 03/02/2021 18:45

If you have already been vaccinated against the coronavirus or think you will be able to do it in the next three months, know that it is very likely that, for the European summer, you will be

able to travel

to Spain without as many restrictions as the current ones.

Desperate to recover tourism -

which represents 12.5 percent of the Spanish Gross Domestic Product

-, the Pedro Sánchez government pressures its partners in the European Union to implement a health certificate, an immunity passport that allows circulation and the mobility of those who are vaccinated against the coronavirus.

“An agreement has been reached at the European level on the minimum common data that

the certificate must contain for medical use

, but we must promote a debate, and Spain is promoting it from the beginning, on the possible future uses of these certificates or safe-conducts or mobility passports, ”said President Pedro Sánchez after the Extraordinary European Council meeting in which he participated on Friday by videoconference.

“The objective will be to

recover normality

and tourism

as soon as possible

without increasing the health risk.

And for these certificates to have an effect beyond their sanitary use, a European agreement is needed.

I don't think we should be content with bilateral solutions, "he added.

This Tuesday the latest numbers of foreign visitors to Spain were known: in January

some 434,000 tourists

came

, 89.5 percent less

than those who did so in January 2020, when the pandemic had not yet broken out.

Those travelers, most of whom were French and German,

spent 452 million euros

, 90 percent less than what Spain collected on tourism in January last year.

The figures explain the Spanish urgency to define the criteria for this Digital Green Pass that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Monday and that could be presented before the European Parliament on March 17.

What is known so far is that, in Spain, the health passport could have three sections: one with the name, ID, date of birth and sex of the bearer;

another with the information regarding the vaccine - its generic name, the commercial one, number of doses and when it was administered,

what would be the date of the next dose

-, and a third, reserved for the country that administered the vaccine, the health center in which it was applied and the name of the person responsible.

Finally, it would appear who issued the certificate, its validity and its digital version.

The document would also include other data such as the negative CRP that the passport holder has accumulated and

if he has already gone through the disease and has immunity.

In israel


The proposal, which Israel has already launched by granting "movement permits" to those who are immunized thanks to its high vaccination rates, aroused controversies in Spain

where both scientific and ethical arguments are objected to.

For Federico de Montalvo, president of the Bioethics Committee of Spain and member of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO, there are epidemiological and ethical objections.

"It is not proven that the vaccine prevents the risk of transmission, although the latest data coming from Israel affirm that such transmission would be more unlikely," he tells

Clarín

De Montalvo, who is also a professor of Law at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas.

And he adds: "There is, on the other hand, an ethical objection: there are people who cannot access the vaccine and if, in addition, we do not give them the certificate, we would be talking about a double punishment."

Clarín

consulted the Spanish Vaccination Association, where its president, Amós García Rojas, considers that the health passport makes no sense: “If the vaccine is not mandatory, how are we going to issue an immune passport?

It's a contradiction ”, he opines.

“In addition, the vaccine prevents disease but we do not know if it prevents infection.

What does this mean?

That I can be vaccinated, come into contact with the virus, not get sick but become infected and be a transmitter.

What is the immune passport for? "

García Rojas wonders.

"And the third aspect: the immune passport will mean that citizens of rich countries, who are those who have access to the vaccine, will have it, while citizens of developing countries, who have and will have much more difficulties to get the vaccine, they won't get it.

With which it contributes to deepen the gap between rich and poor ”, says the president of the Spanish Association of Vaccination.

The airlines, meanwhile, are getting ready.

“Any initiative that facilitates the safe recovery of travel and mobility in a common framework that generates trust among customers

will always be very welcome,

and in fact, from Iberia.

We are working on the digitization of the documentation and tests required by each of the countries, so that their verification is more fluid and comfortable ”, says

Ignacio Tovar, director of Innovation and Digital Transformation at Iberia

, to

Clarín

.

-Is Iberia considering launching its own health passport like the one that some airlines are about to implement, such as the Travel Pass that would come into operation from March?

-Yes, our IAG Group participates together with IATA (International Air Transport Association) in the development of the Travel Pass and we are working to launch it at the end of March on one of our routes to Latin America.

In parallel, we continue to promote other similar applications, both external and internal, which we hope to activate in the coming weeks and which obey the same philosophy as the Travel Pass: that customers can safely share the documentation, information and diagnostic tests that each country requests them and that the airlines can easily check it

-What will it consist of and from when?

What type of passenger health information will it include?

-The idea is that the Travel Pass is a global, digital record, accepted by all countries, which makes it easier for the passenger and the authorities to obtain accurate information.

The path to these “digital wallets” is a complex process that requires several steps: converting all restrictions, Covid tests, declarations or access forms to a 100 percent digital environment and, secondly, achieving greater integration between the different agents that intervene when traveling so that the airlines will not have to store any data, but we will be able to consult, in real time, information such as, for example, the result of a Covid test that will allow the client to fly based on the restrictions of each destination.

The cell phone will be a key piece and absolutely safe.

-Will it be mandatory on all routes or only on those that involve countries where the incidence of infections is still high?

-As I say, it depends on what the authorities establish, but the idea is that the Travel Pass is a global, digital registry, accepted by all countries and with the same criteria for all.

It is a global commitment by the airline sector to reopen borders, resume travel and restore normalcy as soon as possible.

Upon its implementation, we will begin on one of our routes to Latin America and, progressively, we will scale it up to the rest of our network.

Madrid.

Correspondent

PB


Look also

Solution or attack on freedoms?

Controversy over the "vaccination passport" is stirring

"Travel to Cuba and receive a free vaccine": Havana's plans to relaunch tourism

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-03-02

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